Behind the Honor
by 1066OD427CO
Summary: The main story is is a series of shorts from the lives of the 104th characters starting with the end of ch. 50 of the manga and moving onward. It focuses on Eren x Mikasa mostly, with some Armin x Annie, and the typical others. This will also have plenty of short chapters, outside the main story universe, based on your prompts. Updated every other day.
1. Détente

**Here is my first story. It works like this. For some chapters, you'll get the main story, usually romantic drivel. For other chapters, I'll write according to any prompts you might give me in your reviews. Those would be non-canon to this not-at-all AU universe, but they're fun nonetheless. Both types of updates will be clearly identified.**

Behind The Honor: Chapter 1: Détente

Slowly Mikasa's eyes opened in the dark. Groggy, unaware, she instinctively groped to her side, then along her shoulder and her back, finally towards the edge of the bed behind her. Her hand pawed further and further about, trying to find something she might have lost. Something she was sure should be- she always kept it there- right... behind... her. In her dream hazed state, its name, its image failed to materialize. _Where... Wha... What is it? Where is it..._

She had been sleeping on her right side, curled in a ball. The hand beneath her, not currently searching, tugged at the red scarf she wore. _No... That's not it... What was-?_

"Hey. Hey... Don't strain yourself."

Surprised at the sound of the unforgettable voice, the girl heaved upright, or tried to, only managing it as far as half a sit-up before falling back against a soft bed. An ache spread through her side. She massaged the sore spot gently, running her fingers beneath her uniform jacket and over her white, long-sleeved shirt. It was a deep muscle ache, dull and lingering, just the kind she could ignore for the time being.

She blinked her eyes in the darkness, rolling onto her back as her hand resumed searching for something she couldn't see with her eyes. She grabbed a hold of something firm but yielding; a thigh. She had been so close to finding it, missing it by only a matter of inches. Briefly, the young woman debated giving it a light squeeze before deciding to slide her palm down to something less threatening, stopping on his knee.

She gave that a squeeze of gratitude. As she pulled her hand back, a gentle touch on the back of her finger sent a surprised shiver through her. And just like that, the moment had passed and her hand lay back at her side. The gentle sound of Eren's hand collapsing against his knee rocketed her thought process back into reality. _He... He was trying to hold my hand? He was trying to hold my hand and I blew it? So stupid..._

She could have cried. The cynical part of her told her that she was pathetic. There was a time when they couldn't stop holding hands. And now, now she was reduced to mentally begging for every little bit of contact she could glean from her foster-brother.

She could have put her hand right back where it was and grabbed for his. But she didn't. She could have asked him to comfort her. He might have done it. She could have told him how she felt about him, but she just didn't have the guts. She would have to be facing certain death before that ever happened.

She gave herself a mental shrug. There would be other opportunities. He was her family, her _brother_, and he would always be there. They would be together from now on. Forever.

_Forever._

_Forever...?_

_He... He said that, didn't he? From now on, we would _always_ be together? When did he-?_

She shot up with a start, backing up against the headboard, eyes darting around the starlit room, looking anywhere but at the boy seated in the chair at her bedside.

"Mikasa?!" Eren's hand clamped onto her shoulder, "What's wrong? You shouldn't be sitting up yet. Your ribs..."

Her whole body began to shake. She remembered. It _had_ taken certain death for her to confess her feelings. Only one problem remained, then. She wasn't dead.

Her body shook so hard that the blankets fell from her chest and legs, lying about her bare feet. Her scarf began to unwind from her neck when the dry-heaves came. Her head bobbed up and down between her knees to the sounds of choking, her black hair dangling and dancing to block out what little light filtered into the room.

She barely registered Eren's horrified reaction, nor did she take any notice when her crimson keepsake fell to her side. Eren climbed out of his seat and into the tiny bed with her, one leg dangling to the ground. Only when he draped his arm across her shoulders and pull her into an embrace did her body cease convulsing, stopping the way it had started, not of its own accord.

He began rubbing her back. She responded by nuzzling her head into his armpit. He hadn't bathed in at least a day, but strangely, she found she liked the smell. _Still_ liked the smell, rather, of Eren just a hint of musk.

Suddenly, all thoughts of her death-bed confession evaporated.

"Eren, how long have you been here?" she asked, her speech muffled by his shirt.

"Um... Here?" he said, pointing down to the bed, "Or _here_ here?" he finished, waving his hand about the room.

She slapped his chest lightly. "You know what I mean. In this room. Watching over me."

"I... Uh..." he stammered, then began making a show of counting his fingers, "Including bathroom trips or-"

"Eren Jeager! Answer me."

He grumbled something to himself, something inaudible that may have had the words 'not your little brother.' She was glad she missed it.

She sighed, preparing to sit up again when he inevitably pulled away from her in a huff. Instead, the most strange and miraculous thing happened. He pulled her into him even deeper, giving her shoulders a tight squeeze just for good measure.

Mikasa Ackerman could have died a happy woman right then and there. Her stomach fluttered and her heart pounded. She had had plenty of dreams about Eren before, and if she knew one thing for certain, this was no dream. Then that meant they were already dead. Except she had vivid memories of clutching herself tightly against her brother as he whisked her away to safety on horseback.

_So what the hell is going on? Did Eren suffer some kind of affection-generating brain damage?_

"Uh... It's been about twenty-four hours since I put you to bed, I guess," he answered.

Mikasa grabbed at his shirt and strained to look into his eyes. _You've got to be kidding me. _"What?"

"Yeah..." he shrugged, "I'd say it was this time last night- well morning- that we got back and I put you to bed."

"And you've been awake? This whole time? Looking over me?"

"Yeah... So?"

"You shouldn't have done that," she sighed, "I would have been fine either way, and you need your sleep. Did Armin bring you some food at least?"

"Why are you asking? You're the one that's hurt here, not me." he said, starting to pull away from her.

She sighed yet again. He was the same old Eren, then. No brain damage, though, so that was a plus. She sat up, putting her weight back against the headboard, rather than on the young man, conceding to the inevitable.

"And I did get food brought to me, but not by Armin," he said, looking away, "He should be back soon, though. He volunteered to spend a couple days on watch detail. Over her."

Mikasa expression darkened considerably. _Her. The arrogant little psychopathic war criminal that couldn't decide whether she wanted to make out with Eren or kill him. So no one's strapped high explosives to her cocoon and made it rain bitch-dust yet? I guess they're leaving that honor for me, then. I accept._

"So, Sasha's been bringing me chow," he finished.

Still in a haze of anger, the young woman looked over at the boy. "Sasha? I'm surprised there was anything left by the time it got to you."

"Well, she may have had a little of my rations, I don't know..."

"You could have at least tried to take care of yourself," she said, "I'm not some fragile little doll. I'm not your baby sister, so you don't need to treat me like I am." _Eren's words, coming out of my mouth. Interesting. Now I see where he's coming from._

Mikasa braced herself for the inevitable backlash. She had started it this time, and Eren was about to finish it. She knew what she had said wasn't a good idea, but it was her job to protect him, _not_ the other way around.

Never mind that it was simply the absolute duty of the strong to protect the week- and no one could deny that she was far stronger than him- and never mind the fact that he was her only family and she _had_ to protect him if she intended on keeping what little she had. She truly needed to protect him because he had done it for her, had saved her life against incredible odds and at phenomenal risk to his own. She _owed_ him that protection and her life, from that point onwards.

And of course there was the little matter called love and how she had fallen so deeply into it with him.

"I know, Mikasa, I know," he said, reaching over to pat her shoulder.

Instead of pulling his hand away when he finished, he left it there, on her shoulder, then began kneading his fingers into her. There very idea that she had been the one to pull away from him, and then to have him reinitiate the contact, was so alien as to jar her mind.

After a moment's hesitation, Mikasa decided that could have melted right there on the spot. Her stomach fluttered again, the pounding in her chest returning. She tried to ignore the hand like it was a stray kitten just resting there. If she paid too much attention to it, it might decide to leave.

Instead, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation, willing it to stay. Was she worried about something? Angry? Upset? She couldn't remember anymore.

"It just felt nice, is all," he said.

_Hmm? Nice? Yes, this is nice. What's he talking about?_

"It felt so nice to be the one taking care of you, looking out for you, for once," he continued, while Mikasa hummed at what she thought were his natural pauses, "You know... It felt like I saved us back there. I needed that. And then to watch over you here, even though I'm sure I wasn't doing anything, it felt really, really nice... To think that I was still helping you. To recover or whatever."

"Mmmm Hmmm..." she mumbled, sitting perfectly still with her eyes closed, feeling his fingers and thumb as they massaged tender patterns into her skin.

"Mikasa, are you listening to me?"

"Mmmm Hm?" Her head shot to her left, taking in his aggravated expression, catching him just in time to see his eyes roll. "Yeah. Yes. I mean yes. I'm listening."

"Then what was I saying?" he asked.

Caught, she sputtered, "That, um, you..."

She looked over at him. His expression gave no hints as she struggled to find something, anything to say. She refused to admit that she hadn't been paying the slightest bit of attention to his ramblings. It was probably something about titans. That was always a safe bet.

Still though, there was a long shot that it _wasn't_, and there was no way she was going to be harangued by the boy if she guessed wrong.

"Those things you said... I understand." She glanced at the young man as his eyebrows rose incrementally, "The things..." The look on Eren's face told her it wasn't working. "That you said."

_Abort. Now._

His hand began to pull away from her shoulder.

She slapped it back down to where it had been and wrapped her fingers around his, all on one motion. _Where. The. Hell. Did that come from? Did I just-? Hurry up and apologize for the last thing he was upset about before you make this any more awkward._

"What I said," she began, looking into his eyes. He softened a bit, under her gaze. "What I said was wrong. I... Shouldn't have nagged you about watching over me. I'm glad I mean that much to you."

He reached over, cupping her ear before running his fingers through her hair. He capped it off by tussling the raven strands and letting his fingertips linger a bit on her scalp. Mikasa closed her eyes, squeezed his hand more, and almost lost control of herself amongst the sensations.

"You _were_ listening, sorry," he said, reaching down to retrieve the scarf that she had forgotten about, "So you're okay now?"

"Mmm?" she opened her eyes looked over to him, "Oh, yeah, great actually. I think I'm fit enough to start training. You know I'm a fast healer. Why do you ask?"

"Well, Just a minute ago it looked like you were going into a seizure," her replied, bringing the scarf to her lap. He starting massaging her scalp with his fingertips and she tried not to purr.

Then what he said hit her. Her eyes grew side as saucers. _Oh, damn...__  
_

"Eren, how much do you remember about what I said when we were facing down that smiling titan? What I did?"

His emerald eyes shifted from the top of her head to lock onto hers. He hesitated, just for an instant, but it was enough. He knew.

"Huh? Not a thing," he said with a shrug, "We were in combat. I was in an adrenaline haze. I don't remember a thing. Sorry."

She smiled. "Oh." _Eren Jeager, I want to have sex with you really bad right now._

He brought the scarf up to her face and slowly coiled it around her neck. His touch was so gentle and careful; he was taking his time to make sure to do it just right, almost as if he wanted to prolong the experience.

Mikasa couldn't tell in the dim light to be sure, but when he finished, it looked like his hands might have been shaking. He bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

"You know," he said, getting up to leave the room, "I think I could do that forever."

**Up next will be either another chapter in the main story featuring some Armin/Annie fluff, or it will be one of your prompts. I'll consider all prompts when I write, not just the most recent ones. If yours is M, I still might write it, but in another story.**

**Please review and maybe leave a prompt.**


	2. Behind Blue Eyes

**I own nothing here.**

**I'm still soliciting prompts.**

**TheLuckyShot: Thanks for the review. Let me know about that prompt.**

**Anon: You're next. I'm thinking Indonesia or Columbia. Preference? **

**The quote is from a book about Arthurian legend.**

Chapter 2: Behind Blue Eyes

Night had fallen again. It felt darker, colder somehow. She had learned to recognize it some time ago; it would last for around eight hours at a stretch, growing longer and colder like the seasons shifting into winter. It was moving into winter, on the outside, in the world, wasn't it? She couldn't remember. The silence, the stillness, the dark… It did things to her mind. She had even been denied the pleasure of the sound of her own heartbeat to keep her company. It had been frozen in stasis along with her body. It suited her, she figured, as she was sure she didn't have a heart to begin with.

Night. Annie Leonhardt hated it. Night meant that the watchman's shift would end. There was a time long ago when that wasn't the case, when she had been under twenty-four hour guard, but that had changed. It didn't take long, in real-time, for the Recon Corps to realize that she wasn't going anywhere. They probably thought that she couldn't break out of her shell even if she wanted to. That might not have been very far from the truth.

Demand for man-power in the field, and Annie's currently benign nature, meant that three eight-hour shifts had dwindled to two after only a few days. Scant weeks later, much _much _longer from her point of view, those two shifts had become one ten-hour shift with a lunch break. She could feel their presence, their heat, their _something_, as they came and left. Only those ephemeral shades of the men and women that hated her kept her company.

Part of her knew, intellectually at least, how long the days were, but the vast majority of her self had lost all sense of time. Days stretched into months, then years and decades. The shade would leave then, to go get a bite to eat on its lunch break, and return a lifetime later. An eternity after that, the shade would depart with the coming of the never-ending night.

Occasionally, one of the Recon Corps would touch her crystal, sometimes with a finger, a palm, a fist, a boot, or a sword. She felt it every time as if it was her own skin, which, in a way, it was. Each touch was different, somehow, in a way that almost managed to convey feelings and a personality. Maybe she had been reading too much into. Being trapped in her sensory deprived delirium may have had something to do with it. After what felt like the first few years, she began to relish every touch like the lifeline to the universe it represented. From the faintest brush of a fingertip to the most violet kick of a heel, she needed them all.

She was sure she could even tell them apart, after a while. She hadn't known who any of them were, except one, and she had a pretty good guess as to another. The later felt feminine, but only just. Typical of a woman Soldier. Bold and outgoing, more than a little nuts, her touches were gentle at times, prodding and violent at others, but always patient. It felt as if Annie was being analyzed and scrutinized by a higher intelligence. It gave the fear of being carelessly broken out of her shell, violently if need be, and a sense of having been violated every single time she made contact. Still, in a sick way, she welcomed those feelings. At least it was something… And she deserved it anyway.

The other touch, the one she absolutely _knew_…

Only two people had ever touched her like that. The first had been her mother, but she hadn't made Annie feel _this_ way, and more importantly, she had died years ago. Now it had felt like many lifetimes since. The other person to convey such unwavering kindness, gentleness of spirit, and absolute _understanding_ had been Armin Arlet.

When she was part of the outside world, everyone else had being too concerned with punching, kicking, or throwing her. There hadn't been much of a middle-ground when it came to Annie's social relationships. Eren might have existed somewhere in that median, but it hadn't been the same.

Armin had been so _easy_ to recognize when he first touched her shell. It had been a caress, somewhere near her face, probably the cheek, and had lasted a few seconds. She knew that. But it _felt_…

It felt like the most tender and all-encompassing embrace of a long-lost lover, the kind where both people were keenly aware of the depth of the feelings they still held for each other. It seemed to stretch on for hours and hours. Far too quickly, it had ended. But his shade had stayed, stayed by her side to keep her company through the years of isolation in day, and warm her through the eons of frigid night.

That had been only two day shifts and then through the night, some time in her first week here. When that night had come, she could feel it creeping over her, over him, and she had cried for years on end, knowing he would soon have to leave. Strangely, he had remained by her side. Annie had refused to believe it at first, but it had been real. The day had gone, the night had arrived in full, and he was still with her.

She could feel him sleeping next to her, and she had dreamed of him dreaming of her.

When he had finally left in the morning, if she could have put herself out of her own misery at that moment, she would have.

Another hate-filled Recon Corps soldier had taken his place. Like all the rest, she had not know him or her, and the never-ending cycle continued.

That had been ages ago, it seemed, and her memory of it, of the pain at his passing, was as sharp as ever. Like her body trapped in the crystal, her mind would never fade with time. She had all but given up hope throughout her lifetimes of endless, numbing solitude of ever feeling Armin's presence again.

Night had fallen again and the watchman was taking his leave. It took forever for the person make his way out the door. In reality, it took a few seconds for his presence to retreat, but it truly felt like she spent days feeling it slowly vanish. She way beyond crying.

_Good riddance_, she swore to herself. He hadn't even had the decency to beat on her shell with an angry fist.

As she prepared for the long night, settling herself in for the mind-numbing cold and loneliness, something tickled at the back of her mind, keeping her senses in check.

_There's no way... I must be hallucinating again, right? I've finally lost it... But it feels so real._

She kept herself aware by sheer willpower alone, during what felt like days on end, as the tickling become a presence, and a familiar one at that. Her beloved Armin had come back to her.

She wept with joy as the one person who always gave her what she never deserved, kindness, came to sit at her side once again. She had spent countless lifetimes with him and only him, in merely twenty-four hours of real-time, and had grown to love him more than she had ever thought humanly possible.

At last, the cold resentment of silently brooding strangers was replaced by someone who cared for her. Someone who seemed like he understood her. She had spent their last time together dreaming of him, confessing her innermost secrets to him, shedding her feelings and thoughts one at a time, until finally she laid bare before him. And he had not rejected her. The feeling had been of rebirth in a way she had never thought possible.

Somewhere deep inside though, she knew that she hadn't really been speaking to him. She had never really strolled through meadows in bare feet with Armin Arlet, never held his had on a lake shore while they dipped their toes in the water together, and had never accepted his marriage proposal while he strung flowers through her hair. Maybe that's why she was still in here, in a place where things could be better.

When his presence had settled itself next to her, ready to keep her warm for the long night, she felt his touch, a hand placed on the crystal over her cheek. She could never have hoped for such beauty.

It stayed there, endlessly caressing her face and neck. She wished he wasn't too polite to stray lower. Oh, well, she could pretend. The only way she could describe it, in her delusional universe, was like the embrace of history's greatest lovers who had been separated by death only to be reunited for an eternity in the afterlife.

After a time together like that, his hand began to vibrate with song. Long and low, soft and sweet, the notes came. She soon realized it wasn't a song at all, but words. The syllables took so long to process that she couldn't make any sense of them, but she was left with the unmistakable impression that he was speaking to her.

No one had ever done that during her entire time in her shell. He spoke and the sounds, the vibrations, were traveling through his body, down his arm and hand, and into her crystalline prison. She had lived without any sound for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to hear. It was beyond amazing.

_God bless you, my Armin. Thank you, thank you so, so much..._

...

"How long are you gonna be like that?" the soldier asked, placing the tray of rations in Armin's free hand. With the other, he traced slow circles on Annie's crystal.

He nodded gratefully for the food, setting it down beside his chair. "Oh, just a couple more days, then I'll be back with Corporal Levi. Things are pretty quiet for the time being," he answered.

"Oh, alright, it's just that you've been here for two straight days already," he said, before quickly amending his words with the wave of a hand, "Not that I'm complaining, mind you! I think you're the only one who wants this crappy detail. The guys are sure appreciating the break."

"That's good then, because I don't mind it," replied Armin, "She was a very good friend of mine, once. And besides, this gives me a chance to catch up on all my reading."

"You, uh, think she can hear you in there?" the man asked.

Armin swallowed the piece of bread and looked up at him.

"We can hear you reading," he said, "Out loud. We thought you might be reading to her."

"I know she's alive, but I'm not sure she can hear me," the young man said.

"How do you know that?" he asked, "How could anyone survive in there?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted, "But she is. For some reason, she was crying when I got her this time, and I remember she was crying when I left the last time."

"Huh. No one else has seen her do that," the man said.

"Probably just random," Armin shrugged, "I read to her because if she is somehow aware, it must be the definition of a living hell where she is. Any chance that I could help her though that, well-"

"She deserves it," the man said with a snort, "Damn traitor."

"Thank you for the food," said Armin. He gently rubbed the crystal with a palm as he picked up his book with his free hand. Flipping it open to the bookmarked page, he read aloud as the man backed out of the room and closed the door.

"The Queen of Air and Darkness tilted back her head and laughed. A more ghastly sound I hope never to hear. 'Do you think I care about these trifles?' 'Murder is no trifle, woman,' Arthur said. 'No? How many men have you killed, Great King? How many have you slain without cause? How many did you cut down that you might have spared? How many died because you in your battle-rage would not heed their pleas for mercy?' The High King opened his mouth to speak, but could make no answer..."

**Review please, and throw in a prompt if you want: AU, different characters, whatever (smut is okay too, but it will be in another story).**


	3. Run Through The Jungle

**Vanillawhatsits: Thank you. I hope you like this chapter.**

**Tinodnyc: I think I will wait for chapter 52 to come out before I take your prompt. I'm hoping I will be able to make it part of the main story, instead of AU.**

**Ode 30: So, you like ME, huh? Anything familiar about my username? Also, you're somewhere in the queue. Sasha should be surprised.**

**Anon: Get a username. Also, yours is coming sometime. Might not be Skyward Sword, but it will be some kind of Zelda AU.**

**Ron "Captain and Commander of the mighty ship USS Aruannie" Weasley: Love your stuff, buddy.**

**Slick: Definitely get a username. And this one is yours.**

**TheLuckyShot: More Springles it is. You're next.**

**Prompt: By Slick. Eremika after-titan where Eren does some exploring in an equatorial jungle and gets hurt. Mikasa makes sure he doesn't get hurt again.**

**Title: Run Through The Jungle**

**Notes: This is not part of my main story. PCS stands for "Permanent Change of Station."**

"Not again, Eren. You're not leaving me with the kids anymore."

"No way! It's my turn, Mikasa," he said, stepping back from the front doorway of their two story, river-side cottage, "You had your chance to go last time, but you decided to stay here and go fishing with me and the kids instead."

"Yes, I know that," she said calmly, as if explaining simple arithmetic to a child, "I wasn't suggesting that I take your place, I was suggesting that we resume our fishing trip."

"I'm sorry, but I have to go," Eren replied, "You're not trying to stop me because you're worried something might happen while I'm out, are you?"

"Yes. I am," she said, grabbing him by his jacket's collar and pulling him close to her. Even standing at his full height of one-hundred eighty-six centimeters, she could look at him eye-to-eye. "That's exactly what I'm worried about. It's been on my mind. You've been taking more and more risks lately. You... You keep thinking that just because you know how to fight titans, that you can handle these animals, that jaguar-"

"No," Eren interrupted, "I mean I thought that you might be worried that something might happen to you-"

Mikasa snorted, then began shaking her head and looking as if Eren had just suggested that the sky was turning pink with purple polka-dots. "You're kidding, right?" she said, "There's nothing I can't handle here. In this part of the river-basin, with the colony, it's _cleared_ and _safe_, unlike where you're probably going. Even little Carla can handle herself here-"

She used the hand not grabbing her husband to gesture at their eldest child, in the middle of cleaning her new 'revolving' pistol. The little girl smiled and waved to her parents.

"-I'm worried about you getting eaten by a giant cat, or a crocodile, or bitten by poisonous snake, or a centipede, or a tarantula, or god knows what else out there," she said, "You know how to slice up giant _people_... Giant _stupid_ people. What are you going to do when the jaguar that's been stalking you decides to climb a tree and lie in wait for you to double back or take a rest?"

Eren had to admit, she was right. A few months ago, he would have laughed it off. Not now though. That was before one of the jungle cats had decided that after a hundred years, humans were back on the menu. Eren had fallen back on his hand-to-hand combat training when the animal had lunged for his throat, ducking his head quickly and, unfortunately, bringing up his left forearm to block. A hundred and fifty stitches later, sewn in by a silently fuming Mikasa, and he was still working to regain strength in that hand. That cat might have been out there right now, for all Eren knew, still looking for the hairless ape that took his ear.

The young man suppressed s shudder. The work of the Recon Corps had not come close to finishing. The collapse of the walls, and the conversion of the titans, brought with it the release of humanities greatest kept secrets, unfathomable technology, histories of countless continent-spanning civilizations long fallen, and information enough to fill ten-thousand times ten-thousand libraries and still leave them wanting. Included in that information had been maps of a vast world that begged to be reclaimed.

And that meant taming the land.

And that meant reconnaissance of said land.

And that's where Lieutenants Eren and Mikasa Jaeger came in.

"Our tour is almost over," she continued, "It's about time for us to PCS. We've surveyed _double_ what we were supposed to, so I think we can give it a rest." She relaxed her firm grip on his jacket and began running a hand gently up and down his chest. "You know, stay here with the kids and I for the next couple of weeks, collect our awards when we go home, and move into that nice house on the beach next to Armin and... His wife."

Eren chuckled. "You were each others' maids of honor and you still can't say Annie's name?" he said, "Boy do you ever hold a grudge. Remind me not to get on your bad side..."

"Well you're about to, Eren Jaeger," she said, scowling, "I can say this about her. At least she changed."

Mikasa's remarks about the former titan-shifter were farther from the truth that she let on. Annie certainly had plenty of remorse over what she had done despite the war-crimes tribunal having cleared her, describing her actions as the deeds of a Soldier following her orders. It helped that one of the panel of judges was the newly appointed commander of the Recon Corps. That certain kind, blond someone had been practically living and working out of her prison cell for some time before the trial.

The petite young woman had atoned, sought forgiveness, and even shown genuine regret, that part was true enough. She had even vowed never to pick up a sword or firearm in anything but defense of life and, to the best of Eren's knowledge, had stuck to it. But Annie Leonhardt was still the same silent, brooding, generally unpleasant person she had always been.

She made exceptions for Armin, to whom she seemed actually kind and compassionate, in a gruff, cuddly-porcupine sort of way, and Eren, who she was at least moderately normal around, and even Mika, with whom she seemed to share a deep 'frenemies' connection.

When asked whether she still hated Annie, his foster-sister-turned-wife had once said, 'Of course I can't stand the girl. But I'll protect her with my life."

That had been just after the bachelorette party she threw for Annie the night before the wedding, a party to which no one else had showed. Eren had been sent the morning after to track down the pair and he found them in a back-yard five houses away, sweaty, smiling, beaten and bloodied, naked except for their sports bras and boxer-briefs, hanging off of each other, sitting in a child's sand-box, and sharing a single bottle of stolen whiskey and a mangled cigar. Not only was Annie sleep-deprived, drunk, _and_ hung-over for her own wedding, she had to have Armin pay extra to get their wedding 'photo-graphs' retouched to remove her black eye and badly swollen lip.

Mikasa hadn't made it through their all-night battle any better off than Annie, and neither of them were of much use to their men that night. Armin had been understandably upset.

Almost a year later, Annie had thrown Mikasa a similar bachelorette party, with a similar result, this time painfully shared by Ymir, Sasha, and Hanji, while Historia had proved her intelligence by opting to relax with the men that night. The girls had another party planned for Sasha in two months. Connie swore he'd get revenge on Ymir if his fiancé came back missing another tooth.

One interesting facet of Mikasa had to be her fantastic capacity to compartmentalize her emotions. She could despise Annie and at the same spend meaningful time with her. She could beat the girl half to death while protecting her from all other harm. It was no different with Major Levi, for similar reasons.

That meant that she could also love Eren, want to protect him, provide for him, never see him get hurt, and not feel in the slightest bit conflicted by using her shockingly aberrant strength to bash his face in or throw him into a stone wall. She had done the latter when she was only ten. He would have to proceed carefully here.

"Listen, Mikasa," he said, beginning to rub his thumb along her cheek, "This will be the last time, the absolute last time I go. I thought I saw some ancient ruins- far older than the normal ones- to the south the other day. I think it might get me published. I'm going to push out about ten kilometers along the river, take some measurements, make some notes, draw a sketch or two, and then I'll be back by nightfall. After that, it'll be me, you, and the kids."

Eren could have appealed to her sense of duty, tried to get another weeks worth of trips out oh her at a bare minimum, but he knew it would do no good. Mikasa could care less that they were technically going to be shirking their responsibilities and getting paid for nothing. She hadn't joined the Recon Corps out of a sense of duty in the first place, and that's not what kept her in the Corps, or brought her to this jungle. He knew that she was only here for him and would be perfectly content reading books with Armin and trading drinks and fisticuffs with Annie at their over-sized house in Northern Carolina.

She would do no more than what was needed to prove that she was the best at the task at hand, something she had already done. While Eren had been concerned with taking endless notes on every piece of primeval artifice he could find, sometimes returning with one or two to study, she would spend her trips actually doing what they were paid to do, exploring the land. Eren hated to admit it, but a full eighty percent of their cartography had been completed by Mikasa while he busied himself turning into the male Zoë Hanji of archeology.

"You promise me?" she asked before letting her head hang low, her eyes fixating on her toes. "Promise me...?"

She sounded downright depressed to Eren. He would bet that her eyes were glazing over with moisture. It really did trouble him that he was about to leave her, but knew he was on the verge of something huge. With only a little more evidence he could prove that a civilization existed and died here thousands of years before the most recent one.

"I promise," he said, "I'll get what I need today, be back by nightfall, and we'll be on the next dirigible air-ship out of here."

Before leaving, he knelt down next to Carla, practiced showing her how to load her revolving pistol, and kissed her goodbye. He made Mikasa promise to do the same in his place for Azumi and Hannes when they awoke.

...

Looking into the setting sun, Eren bit his lip and cursed to himself. If he could still titan-shift, he'd be running along the river-bank back towards his family using fifteen meter strides right about now.

His backpack, along with all the evidence he needed, lay a good thirty meters below and two-hundred meters away from the tree in which he found himself. Next to that tree sat a one-eared jaguar.

His canoe had been long since abandoned, cursed to aimlessly wonder downriver with the current, capsized and spilling supplies as it made its way out to sea. A trio of monstrous arapaima had seen to that. Eren considered himself lucky that he managed to wade to shore at all. A colonist from up-river had been knocked unconscious and drowned when one of the fish jumped and struck his head.

Worst of all, Eren had run out of gas for his three-dimensional maneuver gear with his final grapple and ascent, the one that placed him in his current position on a branch halfway up the length of a giant kapok tree. If he had remember to fill his loaded cylinders, hadn't lost his boat with his spare gas cylinders, and hadn't spent the better part of the day dodging that damn cat from tree to tree, he might not be in this situation.

It had been two hours since he found himself stuck. He decided he would have to make his way back on foot, but not before waiting the beast out. It was the best shot he had at the moment. Mikasa knew the route he had taken, probably better than he knew it himself, so his worst case scenario was to wait until she got fed up, traveled the five kilometers to drop off the kids at the next house over, and go looking for him.

He scooted himself carefully up against the trunk of the massive tree, keeping his legs tight around the bough beneath him, and readied himself for a long wait. Taking off his cloak, he fashioned it into a makeshift pillow and placed it behind his head, hoping to sleep through the next eight hours.

Unfortunately, he hadn't accounted for the snake behind him.

With a startled cry, Eren smacked at the serpent as soon as he felt it on his shoulder, knocking it away and at the same time critically unbalancing himself. Another strangled cry and he quickly fell.

It was all he could do to release his grapples, catch them, and dig them into the smooth-barked three. Legs scrambled for purchase and gained nothing, arms pushed the sharp metal into soft wood, scraping, digging, and clawing for all he could muster. He hoped it would be enough.

He hit the ground with a hard thud, landing with his back on a thick root that jutted up from the ground like a miniature wooden wall. He felt, more than heard, the crack of bone with the sudden stop.

His head whipped violently downward before his body slid to the ground like a sack of potatoes, crumpling into the fetal position on the ground. The pain felt unbearable. Testing himself, he found he could still wiggle his toes, but everything below his thighs felt weak and numb. He didn't know whether his continued consciousness counted as a blessing or a curse. What he did know, staring at the hungry-looking cat in front of him, was that he wasn't going to be around much longer to find out.

Wasting not a second, the animal pounced. Again, instincts took over as Eren ducked and threw his arm up to shield his head, only this time the cat had anticipated the maneuver.

Paws hit first, not its mouth. Extended claws latched into his flesh, tearing into his arm and knocking it away. Teeth came next, aiming for Eren's neck, but finding his tucked chin instead. A quick squeeze and Eren's jaw collapsed with a sickening snap, leaving his temples as the only thing stopping dagger-like teeth from penetrating his skull.

Praying to all things holy and fighting to stay awake, the young man slipped his hand into his belt, drawing out Carla's revolving pistol. Without a second to aim, he cocked the hammer back and pulled the trigger.

At the deafening sound, the cat released him and jumped, scurrying back a dozen paces. Eren had missed, widely so despite the point-blank range, but the sound alone had given him precious seconds to try again.

With the jaguar quickly regaining its composure and realizing that not harm had been done, he drew a bead on the animal's chest as stalked towards him. Another second and it sprinted, taking his leap. Eren pulled back the hammer a second time. The cat extended its paws, so close in its pounce that whiskers speared into raw and bleeding flesh. Eren fired.

The big cat hit him with the force of a horse's kick, but it didn't move a muscle after that. Just to be safe, Eren angled the muzzle of the weapon on the side of the animal's head and put a round through its brain.

Deafened from gunfire, overcome by immeasurable pain, unable to walk even without the seventy kilogram cat lying on his chest, Eren slumped against the kapok tree and lost consciousness.

...

"Maria, Elise, thank you so much for visiting, it's such a wonderful surprise," Mikasa said. She felt distant, for obvious reasons, wishing she could give them a more attentive welcome. "Eren… He's supposed to be here by now. He should be back any second. I-"

_BLAM_

She turned from her guests and looked to the window, her face scrunching up in curiosity. "Sorry... What was that? It... It sounded like..."

"Gunfire," supplied Maria, a tallish blond woman with close-cropped hair. The two women's attention turned from the three young children playing with spelling blocks to the window.

_BLAM_

"No..." Mikasa whispered.

_BLAM_

"No, no, no..." She began shaking her head, her fists clenching and releasing out of instinct. Hands traveled to her thighs, grasping for hilts that weren't there. With a sudden jolt of realization and hope, she turned to her eldest. "Honey, Carla, where's your pistol?"

"Daddy took it!" the chipper young girl shouted.

Mikasa breathed a sigh of relief, but only just. Eren was far away, from the sounds of the shots, meaning that he would be breaking his promise to be home by nightfall. That was something he would never, _ever_, intentionally do, and combined with the gunshots only confirmed that something had gone terribly wrong with his expedition.

"You guys were going to spend the night anyway, right?" Mikasa asked the two ladies.

"Well, yeah," Elise, a dark haired younger woman with an average build, said, "You're not planning on going out there are you? Someone's shooting. There could be bandits."

"I'm not worried about bandits," the tall Recon Lieutenant said as she fished her maneuver gear out of a closet, "I seem to have left something of mine in the jungle, and I'm just going to step out for a bit to collect it. Would you mind…?" She gestured to the playing children.

"Of course!" squeaked Elise, while Maria nodded.

…

Eren woke up slowly, swimming in an ocean of pain. His eyes began to open, adjusting to the morning light. He didn't have to remember what happened to him, he never forgot it. One second, he had killed the one-eared cat, and the next, he found himself here, in his and Mikasa's bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. There were some hazy bits in between where he could swear that someone was talking to him, but that was it.

Experimentally, he tried moving his toes. They worked, still slow and numb, which meant that his injuries hadn't gotten any worse, at least. Then he tried his feet, with the same result. His legs though, they refused to respond.

With a sudden sense of dread, he tried to sit up and massage the appendages into life, but found he couldn't do that either. His arms pinned above his head, his waist, all of it, none of it, could make the slightest movement.

Looking to his left and right frantically, he found Mikasa sitting at his bedside. He knew better that to try to speak. With his jaw cracked and broken, it would only incite more agony. With a plaintive look in his eyes, he willed her to explain.

_Mikasa, please, what the hell is going on with me?_

"I tied you to the bed," she said, "Well, strapped you in would be more accurate."

He glanced up at his arms, and then tried looking down to his feet. Sure enough, he was tightly held in place with heavy leather straps, pulled so tight that he couldn't move a muscle.

_This… This is… Mikasa, seriously?! Why? Let me out of here! You've gone too far! I don't like this! I don't like this at all!_

He struggled and failed to shift himself even a centimeter, only receiving pain for the effort.

"Please don't try to move," she said to him, scooting her chair closer and bringing her face within centimeters of his. Her raven locks tickled his cheeks and blocked out much of the light in the room. Her features darkened considerably. He could only see her face from where he lay; his world was only her and him for the time being. "You will only hurt yourself more. You are wondering why I did this."

_YES! _He mentally screamed at her, _Tell me what's gotten into your head! Now!_

"You broke your back, Eren," she said, "Thankfully, the spinal cord inside is intact, just bruised. When I revived you, we talked for a bit and I was able to diagnose it. Then you passed out again. This is called traction, and it is the only way to keep your spine straight and immobile while you heal. You want to walk again someday, don't you?"

He sighed, then nodded.

"Your jaw has been badly broken. When we get back, it will have to be re-broken and properly set with wires. For the time being, I will be spoon feeding you with this." She sat back away from him, retrieving a jar from the bedside table. She let it hover over his face before setting it back down and resuming her position, letting her nose touch his.

_Azumi's baby food? Great. Just freakin' great. I'm going to be getting spoon-fed baby food by my over-protective sister-turned-wife who thinks she's my mother. I'll bet she's just loving this. It's probably all she's ever wanted._

"Also, you passed out from blood loss and might have died if I didn't find you when I did. Remember how they rediscovered blood typing and we both came out as 'O' positive?" she asked. The woman had a devilish glint in her eye and a smirk on her lips, a rare and frightening occurrence for Mikasa Jaeger. She didn't wait for him to nod, "Well, you've got three pints of Mikasa inside you right now."

Eren didn't know what to think about that. On the one hand, it was the most intimate and lasting experience he could ever have with the woman he loved. On the other, he would never live it down. _And I thought she was insufferable before…_

"So let me tell you something, Eren Jaeger," she hissed into his lips, "You know I will stop at nothing to protect those I love from harm, especially the kids, and especially _you_. I will move mountains, kill hundreds without a second thought, and topple governments to protect you. Do you think I would act any differently because the one I'm protecting you from is_ yourself_?"

For the first time in his life, Eren felt truly terrified by this woman.

"I'm going to enjoy this," she continued, her sweet smelling, heated breath condensing on his skin, "I've got you three ways right now. I'm your sister, and family cares of its own, always. I'm you wife, bound by law and God to care for you. And most importantly, since I just got a telegraph that you've been temporarily relieved of command for medical reasons, I'm your superior officer. None of this 'I'm not your younger brother, you're not my mom BS.'

Eren cringed. He knew when he'd been beaten. It had taken a broken back, but she'd finally won. At least for a little while, anyway.

Mikasa kissed him on the forehead, avoiding his injured jaw. "I'm going to feed you _baby food_, read to you, dress you, sponge bathe you, take care of your sexual needs, and change your bed pan-"

Eren died a little inside at that. He was no longer a man.

"-For the next two weeks at least. I've got the kids staying with Maria and Elise, so it's just going to be me and you. It's one of the dreams I've wanted since I was nine."

Eren rolled his eyes.

"Don't roll your eyes at me. You did this to yourself. On the bright side, after all this stretching, you might finally be taller than me."

When she had finished speaking, Eren nodded towards his right hand. She looked over, seeing him pantomime writing. Mikasa took the hint, nodding before going off to fetch what he needed.

She returned, placing a pencil in his hand and holding up a notebook for him to write on. When he finished, she examined what he had written for her.

"You just lost your writing privileges." she said, then dropped the book painfully on his chest and stormed out of the room.

_What? You know the cat's dead! I just need to be out there long enough to get my backpack! Two hours, tops, I swear! Damn, Mikasa, you're so unreasonable sometimes…_

**Please review, and leave a prompt if you wish, even a continuation or back-story to this. It can be about anything at all, no matter how AU, but smut will be in a different story. Also I prefer the generally accepted, semi-canon pairings (Eremika, Aruannie, Levihan, Levitra, Springles, Hismir[?], Jeanpalm)**

**Next will be a chapter or two will be from my main story, then some Springles, which I may also be able to work into my main story.**


	4. Haifisch

**Thank you to those who reviewed or supplied prompts. You are the only reason I do this.**

**TheLuckyShot: See if you can figure out why I picked this title. You're next.**

**Satsuki de Virgo: Thanks! Your prompt is in the queue.**

**Ode 30: Ha ha, good to hear from you. I might somehow work your prompt into TheLuckyShot's by having an in-training/Levi-Squad comparison for Sasha.**

**Slick: I'd like to hear from you, buddy!**

**Notes: This is part of the main story.**

Behind The Honor: Chapter 3: Haifisch

Annie awoke in his arms, but his body disappeared shortly afterwards, evaporating like it had been a dream. She still felt his presence, his hand, and the long, slow syllables that came from his voice and washed over her like the waters of a hot spring on a frigid night.

She stood, towering over the tree tops. _Damn. Not this dream again._

She had to run.

She needed to move quickly to find Eren, retrieve him, and take him back to base so she could get this nightmare of a mission over with and go back home. A warm welcome she would never expect from her father when that happened, but he was all she had, and she had promised him besides. She kept that thought in her head as she shut out the dread and guilt that threatened to cripple her from head to toe, all fifteen meters worth. A mission failure meant only one thing to a Warrior; a swift and brutal death.

She steeled herself for what she was about to do. This was a war, and people died in war. These were Soldiers and so was she. Grimacing to herself, she charged for the right flank of the formation, where Reiner had told her she could find the boy. Dimly, she was aware that that didn't seem quite right.

As she encountered Recon Corps troops, she stomped on, swatted, or otherwise bashed all the ones that she could tell weren't Eren. The wind whipped their hoods down as their horses carried them at a fast gallop, making the task easier. Any that she couldn't identify, or that may have looked a bit like Eren from fifteen meters up, she made sure to capture and examine up close. Close enough to see their face, and close enough for them to see hers.

She tried to shut out the look of fear that one young man gave her as she held him up to her. It took only an instant for her to see that it hadn't been Eren, that she did not know this man. But on the off chance that he might encounter her in her human form later…

It only took an instant. She couldn't stand to look into those eyes any longer than that, heart of the Warrior be damned. Annie used her thumb to tear into the man's neck, under his chin. A flick sent his head flying. She dropped his corpse and tried not to vomit.

She felt grateful that in this form, facial expressions rarely showed. If they did, her enemies would see the shame and disgust in her eyes.

She tore through the right flank of enemy Soldiers, killing them all. She feared she was beginning to get sloppy, not wanting to look too hard or too long at them, killing them too quickly. Her fears had been all but confirmed when the entire flank had been engaged and destroyed. She stood, looking for any routed troops, ones that might be escorting someone, anything that might point to Eren's presence. Seeing nothing, she turned back to the mangled and smashed bodies that littered the battlefield. She would have to examine them again, _one_ by _one_.

She heard a loud, piercing wail from somewhere around her. She searched for signs of movement, of suffering that she needed to put to rest, but found nothing. As the sound intensified to the point where it hurt her ears, and her throat, she realized where the sound came from. It was from Annie herself, and she couldn't stop screaming.

…

Making her way to towards the nearest smoke flares at a full sprint, Annie began to see her mission unravel before her eyes. She would have to eliminate the enemy one by one to find Eren. The information she had been provided was false. It had not been Reiner's fault, most likely, but rather intentional misinformation from the Recon Corps.

If she had it her way, there would be no unnecessary loss of life on either side, but if this was how it had to be, then so be it. The mission always came first. It was the only way for her to go home, like she had promised. Failure… Well, she could choose either suicide or execution.

Abandoning the mission and hiding behind the walls had seemed appealing, every once in a while, when she spent too much time around certain people, or a certain person, but that was more than impossible.

They would send someone to find her, probably Bert. That boy was too fearful to refuse an order. Just like Annie. He would shift within wall Sina if he had to. The civilian death toll would be immense. She was better off quietly accepting a bullet to the back of the head when the time came. And if that might happen, she might as well just do the deed herself.

She would be branded a traitor if she turned her back on the mission. Her father would almost certainly face severe repercussions for raising such a terrible and disobedient daughter. Annie wouldn't have it. She would do what she had to do. She was no traitor.

Running from one smoke signal to the next, she closed in on a one of the mounted enemy, his hood pulled tightly around his head. He was running from her, trying not to engage. Needing to get a closer look, she batted the Soldier's horse out from under him, sending it flying with such force that the animal died before even hitting the ground. The person, probably male, tumbled uncontrollably before rolling head first to a stop. She hoped she hadn't killed him yet. If she had, and it was Eren…

Slowly, he began to raise himself up on all fours. Sighing relief tempered with guilt, she eyed him carefully. She could have seized him and brought him to her face, but she didn't. The young man had already been stunned and injured by the bad fall. He might not even be able to run or use his gear, if he'd gone into shock. The irony and tragedy of the situation was that she really didn't want to hurt or scare him any more than she had to before she crushed him.

She took a knee beside him, impacting the ground with heavy thud mere meters from the frightened creature. Still, he didn't move except to shake like a leaf. The poor thing was absolutely terrified into submission, fear striking his fight-or-flight instincts aside. She pitied him and hated herself for what she was about to do.

Maybe… Maybe though, if he didn't look up at her, if he kept staring straight at the ground, he wouldn't see her face and she wouldn't need to take his life.

Slowly, gently, so as not to scare him further or even tug on a single errant strand of hair, Annie reached out and pinched his green hood between her thumb and forefinger. As carefully as she might pet a baby bird, she lifted the hood, revealing a shock of sandy-blonde hair.

A disturbing familiar shock of sandy-blonde hair.

_**NO.**__ Not him. Any damn person at all in this godforsaken world but him._

Annie swallowed hard. She needed to put that hood back down _now. _She needed to turn away from him. She needed to hide her face, look away, do something, _**anything**_, other than stare at the blood dripping from the wound that she had caused before-

It was too late.

A resigned grin spread across her clenched teeth. Annie knew at that moment that she was going to die. Armin Arlet was looking up at her, deep azure eyes meeting crystal blue ones. Her gallows smile still across her lips, she slowly opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to apologize, to tell Armin that everything was going to be okay, that she wasn't going to hurt him, and that between the two of them, it wasn't he who would being seeing their life end any time soon. No words came. She had no words to give him that would allow him to forgive her for this.

Instead, she dropped the hood, stood up, and just walked away.

He might be too scared to think at the moment, but the second he calmed down, he would know. Her long bangs might have fooled someone who had had only seen her two forms at a distance, but they were laughably inadequate for hiding herself from Armin. Maybe one, maybe two, _possibly_ up to two-dozen times, the boy had been close enough to her to know what she looked like behind her golden tresses. Combined with his frightening intelligence and the fact that he had just been close enough to touch as she knelt over him, to take in every terrifying detail of her face, it left no doubt that he would know.

The mission was to acquire the 'coordinate' _without _revealing the true nature of the titans, by any means necessary, hence the need for subterfuge in the first place. Failing to kill Armin meant failing her mission, breaking her promise to her father, and sentencing herself to death. So be it. Some things were just too impossible.

Grimly, she began jogging towards the nearest Recon troops. She might be found out, but at least she could retrieve the coordinate. They would still kill her when she returned, but it would probably spare her father some of the repercussions. They might even let her say goodbye before they cut her head off.

…

Annie awoke with a start. Armin's presence surrounded her. She thought she could feel his arms comforting her moments ago, but looking around, she saw noting. She stood from where she had been lying, only to find the treetops grazing against her knees.

_Damn. Not the same dream again._

She had to find Eren, find the coordinate, as quickly as possible. She took off running for the right flank, where she had been told the boy would be riding. Although she couldn't say for certain, something about that information seemed off...

She ground to a stop, heels and toes digging deeply into soil as she halted.

No... Eren... The information had been a rouse. Eren had been riding in the middle of the rear, not on the right.

She took off at a dead sprint, as fast as she could possibly run. Her legs burned and her lungs heaved, struggling against fatigue she tore through trees and branches, heedless as they scraped and ripped at her flesh. Annie couldn't, wouldn't, under any circumstances, allow herself to hurt and terrify Armin like she had done countless times before. If she ran quick enough, she wouldn't see the young man, wouldn't have to fail her mission, and wouldn't need to be executed.

She avoided as many of the Recon Corps cavalry as she could, only stopping to engage those who struck out at her first. She had been doing a fine enough job at it until one of them fell, _actually fell_, from their horse when straps from his maneuver gear became caught up in some branches. His head hit the ground in front of her and he tumbled to a stop, making no effort to get away. She fell to her knees when she sharply corrected her stride, all to prevent the young man from becoming a grease smear under her heel.

She shook her head at the hooded young man, about to stand and resume her run for Eren, when she noticed something oddly familiar about the situation. Here she knelt, an injured young man on all fours beside her.

_No…__** NO!**__ Not this again. __**Why**__ does he always have to see me? Why does he always have to see me as a monster? As what I've become? It's always the same!_

She couldn't stop herself from making sure that it really was him. Gently, as she had done so often in the past, she lifted the hood from the trembling boy's head, revealing sandy-blond hair.

_Why. Why, Armin? Why do you always have to see me like this…?_

Resigned to her never-ending fate of abandonment, dishonor, and execution, she sighed and began to stand before a thought occurred to her.

_Huh. This is a dream. Or a nightmare. Maybe a dream within a dream. But it's not real. It's all already happened so many times before. I can't change the past, but maybe…_

Instead of standing as memory compelled her, she reached out to the shocked young man, ever so carefully wrapping her fingers around his abdomen and cradling him in her hand. She brought him up to her chest, cupping him in both hands and tenderly pressing him to her heart.

After a few precious moments like that, she brought him close to her face, allowing him to stand astride her palms. The boy- no- young man she saw was not the same person she remembered from that day. He appeared older, although it had been mere months since she had seen him for the first time like this. He stood straighter than ever before, save the time when she cried into his chest right before her final confrontation with Eren. Gone was any trace of fear in his eyes, though a soft sadness lingered there. He knew who she was, what she was, had accepted that, and felt no fear.

It was a grueling endeavor for her to speak like this, but she tried.

"Why… Are… You… Here…?" she said in a gravelly dulcet voice, utterly alien to her, "Always here…. I try to… Avoid you… But…"

"I know, Annie," he said, placing a hand on cheek, "You always did try to avoid me. Has it ever worked before?"

She shook her head.

"Then it won't work here," he said, a smile curling at the edges of his lips, "And would you really want it to?"

She paused then, again shaking her head.

"Besides, I'm all around you here," he continued, "Can't you feel it? Can't you feel me?"

This time she nodded. She knew his presence. Even in these nightmares, dreams within dreams within her imprisoned delusion, she could still feel his presence just outside her crystal. His hand rested on the outside of her shell, just above her face, pressing into her indescribable warmth. In this nightmare she hadn't noticed it, or had noticed it and forgotten. How much worse would this have been if he hadn't been there with her this whole time? What atrocities might her subconscious forced her to commit?

"I'm sorry… Armin," she said, hot tears streaming down her cheeks, "So, so sorry… I'm so sorry for everything I've done, everything I've put you and everyone else through. I had no choice! I _thought_ I had no choice-"

He silenced her with a hand pressing into lips. She blinked tears from her eyes.

"I understand, Annie," he said, "And I forgive you completely."

"_How_…?" she begged.

"I just do."

She leaned in close to the tiny young man, pursed her lips, and kissed Armin in thanks.

…

Annie awoke slowly, the warm summer sun beating down on her. She could feel his presence around her, but just like the other nightmares, he was nowhere to be found. With a grimace, she stirred to her feet.

_God damn it all to hell. Not this same awful dream again._

"Hey Annie! Over here!"

She turned to the sound of Armin's voice, seeing the young man waving her over. He wore a pair of shorts and nothing else, revealing his surprisingly lean and muscled figure. All round him stretched endless fine white sand. Behind him was a body of water so vast that she could see no shore on the other side, just a horizon of deep blue. A salty, beautifully scented wind whipped at his shoulder-length hair. His toes splashed drops of water in every direction as he ran to her. She approached him in wide-eyed awe.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"It's called the _Ocean_," he said, holding out a hand to her, "Would you like to go for a swim?"

**I do this for the reviews (and prompts).**


	5. Dust In The Wind (Part 1)

**Hint 227: Thank you. I've always felt strongly that Annie is a tragic character, and I get the feeling that creator feels the same way. I just like expanding on that theme.**

**TinodNYC: Thank you. I haven't forgotten about you.**

**Brook Uchiha Daughter of Zeus****: Yup. In my future headcanon, everyone owns beach houses.**

**TheLuckyShot: Thank you, buddy. This one is yours.**

**King Of Empty Space: Hey buddy, glad to hear from you. I don't know what those things are. But I'm definitely open to crossovers. Is Celestial Beings your final answer? I might need more info on that one.**

**TalkingPhilosopherStone: Thank you. I do this for you.**

**Ode 30: You're next, buddy.**

**Prompt: By TheLuckyShot. Springles antics during their time training in the 104th.**

**Notes: ****This is part of the main story and also a prompt****. It is part one of a two-parter. Part two will be Ode 30's prompt, where Sasha finds out about what happened between chapters 35 and 51 of the manga. This also doubles as my **_**Holiday Chapter**_**. Next will be some more from the main story, but not a prompt.**

**Title: Dust In The Wind (Part 1)**

...

**Roughly Two Years Ago**

...

"So, do you want to ask them or should I?"

Sasha looked to the noodles on her fork, then back to Connie then back to the noodles. He could wait. The noodles, however, were getting dangerously cold.

She stuffed them in her mouth and chewed, making sure to slurp up what had begun to spill back down into the bowl.

"We cuh thoth thoo ih," she said, spraying bits of sauce and pasta onto Connie'e head.

"Dude, gross," he said, grabbing for her napkin and wiping at his hair and cheeks.

"Thorry," she blasted the boy with sauce. Again. Laughing and swallowing at the same time, she almost choked. Connie was so adorable when he got flustered.

"Damn it, Sasha! Finish what's in your mouth, then answer me," he said, wiping the mess from his face.

She chewed two more times before taking the whole, cheek-filling mouthful in one painful gulp. "I said," she swallowed again, "We could both do it. Both ask them."

Sasha pulled the final fork-full of noodles from her bowl and shoveled it into her mouth before he could ask her another question.

"Sounds good," he said, "You ready?"

She looked glumly at the remaining sauce in her bowl. She debated how bad it would look to everyone else in the chow-hall if she stuffed her face inside it and proceeded to lick it clean. Food was scarce now, and had certainly been while she was growing up, so she ate what she could whenever she could. For the moment though, she couldn't possibly fit any more in her stomach so she decided against it. If it had been meat-sauce, now that would have been a completely different story.

...

"So, Eren, Mikasa, any plans for the winter break?" Sasha asked, wedging herself between Mikasa and the headboard of Eren's bed. The space next to the boy had been wide open, but the young man's sister got twitchy when other women got too close and she had no desire to antagonize the greatest fighter in a generation.

Connie opted to sit next to the young man, probably for the very same reason. Sasha had never seen Eren act jealous, excepting around Jean of course, but she could assume. It would make things a lot easier when those two finally tied the knot.

They had decided to ask the siblings to come over to Connie's place for the holidays, but still weren't quite sure how to broach the subject. Sasha's travel arrangements prevented her from spending the first couple of days wit her parents, so she had readily agreed to join Connie at his parents' place. She would be staying for the autumn feast, then leaving on the caravan from his village to hers for the winter feast and the remainder of the break, but the Jaeger twins... How did one say 'How about ya come with us for the holidays?' without the implied, 'Cause your parents are dead?' and, 'That goes double for you, Mikasa?'

"Yeah, my mom is always making a ton of food, and she wanted me to bring some guests," said Connie, "We didn't want it to go to waste."

"Something tells me you won't need to worry about that," mumbled Mikasa as she eyed Sasha, or more specifically, her stomach.

"His mom thinks he has no friends!" Sasha belted out, slapping Mikasa on the back. The other girl grimaced. "So he's gonna prove her wrong."

"Well, uh," Eren glanced over at his sister, "Is Jean coming?"

"No," said Connie.

"No," said Sasha.

"Well then I guess..." began Mikasa, before growing silent. She locked eyes with Eren before asking simply, "Armin?"

"Oh, yeah," said Eren, turning to Connie, "You'll have to see about Armin. We'd love to go, but we can only do it if he's in too. But I think he has plans here. The three of us... Well, we wouldn't go without him."

...

"This should be easy," said Connie as they searched around the barracks, looking for the fair-haired young man. "He'll come. He's got no family either! And you want to talk about someone who has no friends? Aside from Eren and Mikasa- wait. Why did you say I had no friends anyway? It's not true."

"We needed to make up an excuse for why we're inviting them. They're so damn prideful, if they caught a whiff of pity, they're never _ever _come. And then they'd be stuck here with Drill Sergeant Shadis over break," she said, bringing a hand to the top of the boy's head and rubbing vigorously, "And your 'too much food' excuse was a crock. Besides, I _am_ your only friend."

He slapped her hand away. "You are not!"

"I'm not your friend?" she asked, pretending to pout.

"What? No, you are!" he said, "But I... Well, you've got no other friends either."

"Wha?" Sasha stepped back in the middle of her search, "I do too! Mikasa-" She paused mid-sentence. Actually, the stoic woman never did say much to anyone aside from Armin and her brother. "Well there's Hannah-" No, she was far too infatuated with Franz to notice anyone else. Sasha always felt like such a third wheel around them. "Um, maybe Christa-" But she was nice to _everybody_ and she only felt like a third wheel again, only with jealousy from Ymir that rated a nine out of ten on the Ackerman scale. "Oh, well definitely Mina-" Then again, the pig-tailed girl was closer to Annie than anyone, which was odd, since Sasha rated herself at least a little higher on the social ladder than frozen mud. "Okay... So maybe you're it. Besides, you're _such_ a good cook, and that's all I need anyway," finished Sasha.

"Told ya," he replied, "I learned it from my mom."

"But that reminded me of something," she said, walking over to the door to the girls' room.

"What's that?" Connie asked before noticing where they stood, "Why are we looking for Armin in there?"

"Because you're wrong," she said, "Armin does have one friend outside of the Jaegers."

Hoping her hunch played out in her favor, Sasha knocked twice then flung open the door to the girls' room, revealing Amrin Alert and Annie Leonhardt, looking shocked and irritable, respectively. They sat together on the blond girl's bed, while the boy made some sudden movements around waist level, throwing blankets over his lap, and the girl drew her legs up beneath her.

Connie cocked his head to the side and regarded the pair. "What were you two-"

Sasha smacked the back of his head.

"Ow! Why-?"

The brunette clapped her hands together loudly, "So! We were wondering-"

Connie interrupted, "-if you wanted to join us for winter break, Armin-"

"-and Annie!" finished Sasha, hoping they hadn't made it obvious that Annie's invite hadn't been part of the plan.

She wasn't even aware if the other girl had a family, but it couldn't hurt to ask. Annie had been part of those evacuated from behind wall Maria, which meant that her parents had most likely been part of the quarter-million inhabitants who had been sent to retake the area and probably weren't around any longer. A pang of guilt struck the girl. She hoped the blonde would take her up on the offer.

"Oh... Well, _I_ was going to stay here at the barracks," Armin said, gesturing to himself and sounding pressured, "What were _you_ going to do, Annie?"

The shorter girl grunted and deepened her scowl, her eyes shifting between Sasha and Connie.

"She's staying here too," said Armin, "I just remembered that. She mentioned it to me earlier. It's not like... We didn't, um, plan that or anything. It just worked out that way."

"Oh," said Connie.

He began scratching at the back of his head, deep in thought. Sasha hoped he didn't hurt himself.

"But Eren and Mikasa said they were going to come with us," the tall brunette said, willing Connie to play along, "They promised, and it would make them feel bad if they went without you."

"They're going?" asked Armin, looking over to Annie. She locked eyes with him.

Thankfully, Connie was at least smart enough to not say anything. He didn't even send a questioning glance her way, knowing that Armin would pick up on it in an instant, finishing their rouse. The shorter boy might not understand what happened around him all the time, but at least he always knew when he didn't understand, and that was better than most.

"Yup," said Sasha, "They promised."

"Well..." the blond boy said, still looking at Annie. She gave the barest hint of a shrug. "We'd love to go."

"Reiner and Bertolt," said Annie.

This time Connie turned to Sasha in confusion. "Huh?"

"What about them?" the taller girl asked, although she almost certainly knew where this was going.

"They can't go home," the smaller blonde said, "And you're friends with them, right?"

"Yeah," said Connie. "Do you want to ask them? You're their friend too, aren't you?"

"No."

"But I always see you three together-"

"I said, _no_," Annie repeated through clenched teeth.

"I'd hate to see them left here by themselves," Sahsa interrupted, "Of course we'll invite them!"

She had to admit, it didn't surprise her in the slightest that Annie wasn't friendly with the pair. That girl wasn't friendly with anyone but Armin and Mina. As someone who was very self-conscious of her own unrefined accent, Sasha had become very adept at picking up speech patterns in others. Annie, Bertolt, and Reiner had the faintest of similarities in the way they sounded, and hailing from a similar region probably accounted for why they sometimes talked together.

As to why they couldn't go home, well, Sasha wasn't going to pry. It would have been in poor taste.

...

"So, do you want to come by?" Sasha asked the tall blonde and his taller friend.

"Yeah, sure, Bert and I will be there," Reiner said, arms folded across his chest, "But what about Annie?"

"Yeah, she can't go home," supplied Bertolt, blushing.

"Uh, well she's coming too," said Sasha, "We already asked her."

Sasha tried not to frown. Did the whole village kick their children out to the wolves and expect them never to return? _Not even my village would do that, and I grew up with actual wolves..._

"Good," said Reiner, "We'd like to see her there. But what about Ymir and Christa?"

Sahsa realized that neither of those girls had any family either. Their choices were to either stay here over the holidays, having to eat whatever the dining hall served for the Autumn and Winter Feasts, or dine from the table of the woman who taught Connie Springer how to cook. It should have been an obvious decision.

On the other hand, what had started out as a dinner for four people had become six, then eight, and now ten. With twelve, would there be enough food to go around? Was it possible that she wouldn't get her fill? She clenched a fist in front of her. It was a risk she was willing to take.

_Okay... I'm pretty sure that those are the only two left without family. Once we get them, no one will be left behind. I can't imagine having to sit and eat gruel and bread with only Drill Sergeant Shadis to keep me company. It's... _

_It's enough to make me lose my appetite._

...

"So, you guys want to come over?" asked Connie.

"Yeah, I'm down," said Ymir, looking at the petite blond girl sitting next to her. Christa nodded firmly and the much taller young woman draped an arm around the smaller one's shoulders. "She in too. Who all's going?"

"Me," Sasha pointed first to herself, then Ymir, "You two," then stuck a thumb behind her, "Armin, Annie, Bertolt, Reiner, Mikasa, and Eren."

"Well damn. You've got grandpa Reiner, his frightened grandson, the nerd, captain titan-killer, potato-girl, two ice-princesses fighting over the bitch-throne, and you, Connie. Will there even be any food left?" Said Ymir, poking Sasha's stomach and giving a hearty laugh. "Where are all the normal people? Marco, Mina, Franz, and Hannah all say no? Doesn't matter. I always fit in better with the crazies anyway."

"Cause you're the _biggest_ one of all..." muttered Sasha.

"Ha!" said Ymir, giving the other girl a light punch on the shoulder.

The brunette stumbled a bit and tried not to rub where Ymir had hit her, instead pretending like she barely felt it.

"Well, we'll see you there, guys!" said Sasha, grabbing Connie by the hand and pulling him out the door.

...

"I'm so glad you have so many friends!" said Mrs. Springer as she passed a huge plate of carved turkey to Reiner.

Sasha looked over to Connie on her left, pressed in so tight at the table that she threatened to sit on him, and smiled. She felt glad too. These were his friends, all of them, and hers too. They were a motley group of misfits, with enough real family between them to count on a single hand. But here... It felt like home.

There had been plenty of food after all, a cozy fire to chase away the cold, good conversation, and a delicious spiced drink that warmed one from the inside out and had a slight kick. She didn't want to head to her village tomorrow afternoon. Maybe she could convince her parents to come down here, if the Springers were willing to have two more?

She shook her head of the thoughts. Now was not the time. Now she should be conversing and clearing her plate. For Connie's sake, she would try not to do the two at the same time.

Looking to her right, she saw Mikasa shoveling food onto Eren's plate, berating him for not eating his vegetables. He was telling her to mind her own business, while at the same time tacitly accepting every little bit she offered. The two played footsie under the table, ostensibly to gain more leg room, but both kept at it for other reasons. Mikasa knew what was going on and so did Eren, but neither one thought the other knew.

Across from them were Annie and Armin. The latter was speaking to Annie excitedly about something or other called the _ocean_. Most likely it was something boring and science related. The blond girl rolled her eyes and kept nodding, not even in time to the pauses in his words, making every effort to appear completely uninterested. She paid more attention to the chunks of food she picked up and idly popped into her mouth, and yet he still kept on talking. It was all an act, Sasha knew. She could tell from experience and the way the girl's gaze shifted ever so slightly when she feared he might stop or turn away from her. Annie was hanging onto that boy's every word.

Ymir sat next to Annie and across from Christa who should have been there, next to Eren. But true to form, the small girl had been up and about, preparing the meal, then serving and refilling drinks, always checking on Ymir first she noticed, then serving all the courses, before starting to clean up the kitchen. Sasha liked to help too, bagging two turkeys and a buck with an old flintlock when she first got here, but there should be a limit. She was about to say something when Ymir caught the petite blonde by the arm and got up, walked her back to her to her seat, and sat her down. She proceeded to serve the little blonde, piling her plate high with turkey and venison.

After dinner, they had moved to the living room, taking seats on the carpet in front of the fireplace, joking and laughing into the night. They told stories of training, being sure to omit the depressing or terrifying ones. The spiced drink had had its intended effect. Whether one simply leaned against the other, in the case of Bertolt and Reiner, or they traded discreet kisses like Ymir and Christa, all of the couples, even Eren and Mikasa who held hands, showed some kind of affection towards each other. That left...

"Thanks," Shasha whispered into Connie's ear, giving the young man a hug.

He hugged her back, and she felt her heart beat a little faster. "This wouldn't have happened without you," he said.

He let go of her, and she him, but they kept their fingers interlaced together. She didn't know what they had, but it felt like more than just best friends.

"So... We've got two spare rooms, one of which has two beds, the other with one, and the couch has a pull-out bed," Mrs. Springer said, "And there's Connie's room too. I'm trying to work out sleeping arrangements-"

Mikasa's hand shot up, still holding Eren's in hers, "We shared a bed growing up. We can do it now. It's not weird."

"Okay...," Mrs. Springer said.

Eren just rolled his eyes.

"Bertolt and I will stay here," said Reiner, pointing to the couch, "Let these guys take the beds. Besides, the fire is here and Bert gets cold at night."

"So, that leaves Armin and Connie in his room and Sasha, Annie, Ymir, and Christa in the room with two beds?" asked Mrs. Springer.

"Yeah, that's cool, Mrs. S," said Ymir, "But, uh, Christa's sleeping with me. Annie and Sasha can take the other one.

Sasha knew there was no way Annie would let her in bed with her. The silent girl wasn't comfortable sitting next to anyone, let alone being in the same bed with them. The brunette resigned herself to freezing on the floor. She'd much rather have been with-

"No," said Annie.

"Hm?" Mrs. Springer turned to the girl, who had probably spoken for the first time that day. It only emphasized the import of her words.

"In the first room, I will be sleeping with Armin in one bed and Mikasa will sleep with Eren in the other," she said, icy blue eyes looking around the room, daring anyone to defy her, "Ymir and Christa will share the bed in the other guest room. Bertolt and Reiner can stay on the pull-out couch. Connie and Sasha will take the bed in his room."

At the last sentence, Sasha's fingers involuntarily tightened around Connie's. Her fears that he might have noticed were confirmed when his did the same. She felt a little giddy.

"That works just fine," said Mrs. Springer, smiling broadly, "Any objections?"

There were none.

...

**Today**

...

"Connie. Do you know what day tomorrow is?!" Sasha asked the boy.

"Huh, I... Yeah, but not now, Sahsa," he said.

He actually seemed depressed. That _never_ happened to Connie. It had become something for her to rely on, and one of the things she liked best about him. He could always cheer her up. For him to be like this, especially at this time of year, could only mean your thing. There might not have been a break in the wall, but somehow the titans had come from the area of Connie's village, right through where she had spent her last two Autumn Feasts.

He had just come back from checking on his family, as she had done with hers.

"The... The titan incursion to the south...," she mumbled, wide, glistening eyes staring at him. She reached out, grabbing hold of his hands in hers, "Your parents... Your mom! Mrs. Springer... Is she...?"

"No," he said staring up at her, "Worse."

"What could be worse than-"

She was cut off when he pulled her into a hug.

"Listen, Sasha..." his gravely whisper tickled her ears.

Just hearing him like that was enough to send tears streaming down her face, and she didn't even know what was wrong.

"You listen to me," he continued, "It will never be the same again."

**I do this for the reviews (and prompts)**


	6. Wish You Were Here

**Blackout785: Good prompt, but can you make it more specific? Where do I go with it? Remember that it should be able to fit into a single chapter.**

**Hint 227: Different interpretations and possibilities. It may not be in the story, but the way I see it, it doesn't violate canon either. You can assume that we just didn't get to see all the interactions.**

**Ode 30: I'm glad you liked the last chapter. When it comes to Annie and Co., I am reminded of the U.S. Sailor who escaped from the USS Arizona when it was sunk at Pearl Harbor. Most of his friends died there. Several years ago, he met and forgave the Japanese pilot who sank his ship. I wish I could remember their names. The whole 'warrior' aspect of RBA leads me to conclude that these are just Soldiers doing their jobs. You're prompt is next.**

**Brook: !**

**TheLuckyShot: I'm glad you liked it. What does your signature mean?**

**Satsuki de Virgo: I'm glad you liked it. I had never read a Springles fic before either. I wanted Sasha to be seen exactly the way you saw her. And yes, now that you have requested it, I will do a sequel to Run Through The Jungle.**

**Karano (1): Yes.**

**Karano (2): Maybe it's my personal experiences, but I can't seem to hate any of them. Subterfuge and sabotage are a timeless (and technically legal) part of warfare, though they may be seven kinds of questionable. If I was ordered to infiltrate a an enemy stronghold, befriend them, then kill them if I had to, I'd do it. I'd probably hate myself to death and never be able to sleep un-medicated again, but orders are orders. Annie is actually the one I struggle with the most. What she did borders on a war-crime. The others might be let go at the conclusion of all this, but she would be facing some kind of trial.**

**Notes: This is part of my main story. Be advised that I will probably be doing prompts for a bit, until the manga picks up again, starting with Dust In The Wind (part 2).**

Behind The Honor: Chapter 5: Wish You Were Here

"Hey, Eren, can you help me?"

The young boy got to his feet in a flash, his book falling to his side. He was afraid something like this might happen. He had needed to leave her bedside for a few moments to use the outhouse, but a moment of weakness had seen him distracted by one of Armin's volumes on the outside world. When his foster-sister had needed him most, it seemed he was in their squad's communal living room rather than where he should have been.

The poor girl still needed to recover from a set of painfully broken ribs and could do almost nothing on her own. Eren and Historia had both been caring for her, but the petite blonde girl was out and away at the moment. As much as he wouldn't have minded doing tending to Mikasa all on his own, it had been his decision to leave some of the more intimate tasks to the young Miss Reiss. If that's what this was about, things were about to become a mix of frustration and awkwardness for the young soldier.

Eren stepped lightly to Mikasa's quarters, a small three-meter by four-meter room with an equally small bed, and began to push the door open. This would give him time and opportunity enough to shut the door quickly, should he see anything too private. Such possibilities always loomed; his foster-sister had a habit of 'forgetting' that they weren't kids anymore and changing right in front of him. It wasn't that he minded, quite the opposite in fact. He just didn't want to be labeled as a creep for staring.

Opening the door wider and wider, he finally found his sister, on the floor, looking like she was about to do the last thing in the world that she should be doing. Or maybe the first thing, knowing her.

"Hold my feet," she said, looking up at him. After a moment, she must have noticed the expression on his face, adding, "Please?"

She was sitting on the ground, holding her knees to her chest, ready to work out her abs. She wore nothing but a loose, worn sports bra and a pair of tight compression shorts. The former showed an enticing amount of cleavage from her modest-but-still-perfect breasts. Eren tore his eyes away, willing himself to feel anger, rather than what his body told him to feel.

"Mikasa, what in the hell do you think you're _doing_?!" he all but yelled. He needed to keep his tone tightly regulated, the better to show that he had learned to better control his temper. But seeing his beloved foster-sister about to do something so stupid sent his blood boiling and made it easy to get carried away.

"Sit-ups," she said, giving a half-shrug.

"I... I can't even begin to understand how you think this is a good idea," he said, shaking his head in disbelief, "I'm even less certain how you could possibly think I'll help you with this."

It wasn't that her ribs had been broken before their run-in with the smiling titan and aggravated by the long horseback ride to safety. If that had been all, he might have helped her with only begrudging reservations. Just enough time had passed. No, it was because this was the second time she had broken her ribs in the span of a week.

Only yesterday she had been standing, walking, and training on her own without much issue. She had insisted that she had been completely healed. But bones don't permanently set that quickly, even for someone with ostensibly superhuman abilities like his sister. Her ribs had set and begun to weave together, but no more than that. Basic abdominal work-outs, crunches, and chopping wood she could handle. But hanging upside down from a tree by her legs with forty-five kilograms of weight in her hands while doing inclined sit-ups? That had pushed her body a bit too far.

After he fourth set of that regime, the poor girl's own muscles had compressed and collapsed her ribs, re-breaking six of the bones along their original seams.

Combat released endorphins and adrenaline in both the wounded and the witness. The experience tended to create a tunnel vision effect, dull pain, and limit the sense of everything not immediately in front a person. Training accidents... They happened, and could be felt, as clearly as the stars at night under a cloudless sky. Eren could still hear her screaming in his head.

The last thing he needed was a repeat performance.

"I'm healed," she said, "Good as new."

"You said that before," he replied, moving to lift her off the ground, bridal style.

"Doesn't matter," she said, through she made no move to stop him when one of his arms made its way under her knees, the other running along the small of her back. "This is going to happen," she finished.

"No it isn't," Eren muttered. In a steady motion, he began to lift-

And found Mikasa's hand firmly balled around his shirt collar. He tried moving the girl, but just couldn't get leverage from where he leaned over her and she wasn't about to let him move.

"Hold my feet," she said again.

"No."

"Yes."

Again he made to lift her, and nothing. He tried for a third time, bringing his legs under his torso, instead of trying to lift his torso back over his legs. That would allow him to lift her with his knees. He suddenly had in his head the image of Mikasa as a petulant child. He also began to wonder if this is what she had been going through having to deal with him for so long. _Never again..._

Of course there was an issue with his plan, one he discovered almost as soon as he began to move. He had been leaning over Mikasa to carry her, meaning that she currently sat beneath his upper body. And that was exactly where his legs had needed to be and presently were. He looked down at his red-faced sister, her head mere centimeters from his groin. Very quickly he shared that same complexion. _Too late now. Better follow through._

This time, there was no getting around it for the frustrated and embarrassed girl. She weighed a lot for her build, but not so much that Eren couldn't lift her. Holding onto him, without being able to cancel out his leverage, did nothing but bring the pair closer together in a very literal sense.

Eren had her in his arms and then on the bed in seconds, plopping down next to her and panting from the exertion, or so he told himself was the reason.

Mikasa glared at him. "You know, I'll just get back down there and try again when you leave. And I'll have to do crunches because you won't hold my feet, which are worse for my ribs," she said, still holding onto his collar, locking her dark opal eyes with his green ones.

Eren made no effort to move away from her, or to get her to release her grasp, though her face remained breathtakingly near. Although he didn't want her to know how he _really _felt, he hoped that she could tell that this was his tacit statement that no, he did not mind being this close to her, and that she wouldn't pull away just yet. He knew himself well, and the way others percieved him. He knew that by not complaining in the slightest, his message would get across and he might be able to feel Mikasa's hot breath on his lips and cheeks for a just little bit longer.

"If you're just going to try it again when I leave," he mumbled, "Then I'll have to stay here and make sure you don't." He meant to speak with more conviction but found himself far too entranced by her stare to do so.

He felt as much as saw her moving in closer to him. He registered it slowly, they way a prey animal might have when hypnotized by a cobra. To his shock, he found himself moving _toward_ her by miniscule increments, in time with his racing heartbeat.

Did he want this? _Hell yes_ he did. But did _she_ want this? She _thought_ she wanted it, that was for sure. Eren wasn't stupid or blind. He had know exactly how she felt about him for a while, maybe since they joined the training corps, maybe longer if he admitted it to himself. But did Mikasa really want, or need, a relationship with him? What if it was just an infatuation?

Supposing that they could have a relationship, could they ever look at each other in the same way? No. He hoped that they might see each other as something better, as something more, but his hopes and reality didn't always coincide.

What would happen when she met someone better, less prone to outbursts or obsessions? Or if the romance just died on its own? When a 'sister' bedded her 'brother,' she would without question stop being seen as a sister and vice versa. So with no romantic relationship or familial relationship, they would become... Nothing.

As much as Mikasa made it know that Eren was all the family she had, the obvious unstated truth of the matter was the _she_ was all the family that _he_ had. The young woman would do anything to not lose him, but what she often failed to realize was the he would do anything to not lose her.

With that terrible, grating thought in his head, Eren did that absolute last thing in the world that he wanted to do at that very moment. He turned his head from her. He could have cried when her movement for the kiss carried her forward and he felt her lips press into his cheek instead where he needed them. He closed his eyes and mentally screamed.

When she pulled away he opened his eyes and glanced at the girl. What he saw wrenched his heart beyond words, beyond anything he had ever felt, save perhaps for the death of his mother. In her eyes he saw a resigned kind of acceptance, as if she had been expecting such a failure all along.

_He_ did this to her. _He_ took away the hope she held for whatever future she dreamed of. Eren had visions of a world without titans. Mikasa had visions of a world with _Eren_. He knew this. That's why he couldn't go through with it, no matter how much it killed him, no matter how much he needed it. But a chaste life with his sister was better than nothing.

_I'm doing this for you, Mikasa, for us. Please forgive me._

He needed to give her something. Anything at all. He wouldn't allow himself to crush her hopes like this. And who knew? Maybe there _was_ some hope for them. Maybe he would eventually get over his fear of losing her. Or more likely, a combination of carelessness, alcohol, or hormones would cause his true feelings to slip out. Either way, there would be no going back once it happened.

Slowly, he brought his hand to her bare neck, caressing it gently, noticing for the first time how gorgeous it looked. He never really got the chance to appreciate it, with the way she always covered it with his old scarf. She must have taken it off to work out.

"You look really beautiful without your scarf. It looks good on you. Your neck, I mean, not the scarf. But that does too, I guess," he finished, stammering.

She looked away, blushing furiously under his touch and at his words.

Eren wasn't much better, just touching her like this, sitting next to her, awoke certain parts of him in less than subtle ways. He then realized what, exactly, he had said. Not only would she, in all likelihood, refuse to wear that scarf in his presence again, but his word-soup made almost no sense.

"'Your neck looks good on you...'" he repeated, "That has to be the dumbest line in the history of ever." It was her damn fault, the way she had been turning him into an idiot ever since she tried to kiss him a week ago. He could no longer pretend she wasn't interested in him after that had happened. _And I totally just admitted to using a -very bad- pick-up line on her… Are you even working, Brain?_

He caught her glaring at him.

"You're _not_ an idiot, do you hear me Eren Jaeger?" she hissed.

"Right, but sometimes..." he muttered.

She was about to retort when slid his hand up the back of her neck, running his fingers through her silken hair.

Before he could think too hard about it, he pulled her toward him and down slightly, bringing her forehead to his lips. He pressed into her, letting the sensation of her skin linger before releasing his hold. She complied, recognizing that the moment had passed, leaning back on the headboard of the bed and away from him. She almost certainly felt that to do so was what was expected of her.

"Thank you for the kiss," he said.

"I-" she tried to respond, but he cut her off.

"You know that we'll be together forever, right?" he stated as much as asked.

"...Yes," she said, sounding out of breath.

"And that I can't possibly see myself with any other woman, right?"

Her voice caught in her throat, breaking the word in half, "Y-Yes."

"Okay, then..." again, exactly what Eren had said dawned on him just after he had said it. Ironically, though he hadn't meant it the way it came out, the way that Mikasa had undoubtedly understood it was no less truthful. Being in a romantic relationship with anyone besides her was a completely impossible. He couldn't even think along those lines. "I... I just wanted to be clear."

"Okay..." she said with a dazed smile across her lips.

Was she starting to cry? He looked away suddenly. _I'd better change the subject. If she confesses her feelings now, there'll be no stopping me from doing the same._

"I think we should get some sleep," he said, leaning back, "You know, turn in early. You need the rest."

"I, uh, right..." Mikasa said, "But you said you were going to be here to make sure I didn't..." She trailed off.

"Does it look like I'm going anywhere, huh?" he said, faking his best aggravated tone. He slid down on the tiny bed, pulling the blankets over himself.

Mikasa did the same, drawing the blankets up to her shoulders, leaving her neck exposed. She must have very quickly understood what was happening. Hopefully she wouldn't ruin the moment by overanalyzing it. That would only lead to trouble, which Eren would have to solve by taking the floor, and the warmth of her bed felt quite comfortable indeed.

She scooted close, pressing herself against him, settling her back against his chest, a necessity given the small amount of room they had to work with. He brought one arm beneath her neck and down, Mikasa rewarding him with a comfortable sigh as she used his bicep as an extra pillow. His other arm intertwined with hers, resting it against her chest.

"We always to slept like this at home..." she whispered, "I never did get used to sleeping alone in the military..."

"Neither did I," he agreed just as softly.

"I don't want to have to sleep alone again," she muttered as she drifted off to sleep.

"Neither do I," he said, joining her in a dream.

**I do this for the reviews (and prompts).**


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